Team Name: Geneva's Nightmare ("Lambda-6")

Entries:

Mobile Task Forces. They're the unseen, unknown groups that keep the Foundation running. Hordes of nameless, faceless men and women in uniform, keeping the world safe, while people like Dr. Clef and Dr. Bright catch all the glory.

The Contest

You and your team will create a new MTF. You will design their composition, their nickname, and their duties, then write a number of documents to illustrate how this group functions. The documents you write must include the following:

One Recovery Document/After Action Report (Specifically to show how they work in the field)

One Tale

All told, your team must produce at least five documents, so you'll have at least two of one of these. However, your team can produce more than five documents if you wish. You can not combine documents into one, but you may dovetail entries (an SCP, the GoI version of it, the recovery document for it, and tale about the members before the event, and tale about the members after — as an example) as thoroughly as you wish.

Additionally, to round out or buff up your collection, you may edit documents created by your team members (and only by your team members) to include your new Mobile Task Force, where appropriate. Shoehorning pages in will be frowned upon (and punished by the judges), so maybe think twice before linking your really popular, +150 article just because you feel like it.

Add anything you've edited for this purpose to your contest hub.

Your Team

Your team should consist of three to four people. You'll work together on the collection. Everyone must contribute significantly to the final product. It is expected that at least one work will be written primarily by a single author.

It's always a good idea to have four people, just in case someone has something happen and can't write. Once the postings have been opened, you will not be allowed to add team members! Choose wisely.

After picking a team, decide on a cool name and edit this page. At the bottom, you'll find a simple form which you can use to include your new Mobile Task Force on the page.

Being Classy

There are multiple ways to approach this project. You can get together with some of your friends, write stuff, and have lots of fun doing it—regardless of winning or losing. Or, you can write, get angry at your friends for not performing the way you want them to. You can complain about them, the rules, the contest, the judges, and hate your life.

Try to be a bit more classy. This is supposed to be a fun opportunity to add more to the site rather than make yourself upset, frustrated, or angry. People have quit over contests. You're better than that.

Rules

The basic rules of the contest are as follows:

Your team must consist of three to four people, all of whom must be announced. You may only be on one team. Each team will have a captain, but the individual members are responsible for posting their own work. Please pick someone who is actually around to be Captain, as all communication and questions about the contest should go through them to the organizers. Any other responsibilities the team chooses to invest in the captain should be discussed among the members of the team.

If any member of the team does not post at least one article by the end of the posting period (deleted articles don't count against the member), the team will be disqualified. Please check to make sure that all members will be capable of writing, and if they need someone else to post for them (preferably the captain), that it can be arranged.

The tale/recovery log should be substantive and long enough to show that you've invested some time in them. The SCP/GOI objects should be written in an established style.

You may not delete or edit an article once posted, regardless of performance. Articles that dip to the deletion mark will be subject to normal deletion practices, but they will not be removed until after the contest has ended. This should encourage everyone to work hard with their teams to have a superior product. What's posted is posted. Small corrections are fine, but significant edits are not.

No "Joke" entries. If you're planning on doing pure comedy and lulz, then this isn't the contest for you. If you want an example of how to treat a silly matter seriously, see No Joke or SCP-2662.

Each entry must be posted by its primary author, and each author must contribute at least one (1) entry which was mainly written by them. If you rewrote someone’s work entirely, it's not really theirs anymore, and it wouldn't be fair for them to post something you spent four hours revising when they only invested ten minutes writing it. This does mean that one or two people will be writing more than one entry. That is expected.

For this contest, a panel of judges will be selected from lists made of staff and non-staff members of the site. This list has been randomized, and judges will be selected from it after teams have been formed (in case someone I have slated for judging ends up joining the contest). The method for determining the winner will be based off of both judge opinions and final ratings (in a 50/50 ratio). Judge ratings are determined via rubric which will be shared with participants after posting has ended.

No whining. Points will be deducted for whining.

If you have further questions, send me a Wikidot PM at Decibelles. Please don't clog up the discussion thread with questions unless you have a misunderstanding regarding the contest rules listed here.

Questions I Have Been Sent That Are Good Questions™

Q: I want to judge!

A: Please send TroyL a Wikidot PM if you are not participating and wish to be a judge.

Q: The GoI I want to make a GoI Format for doesn't have one yet, or even a hub! What should I do?

A: You're totally encouraged to create a new format for said GoI, so long as you're willing to explain how it works in the comments of the page. If you wish to make a hub for the GoI, please get in contact with me.

Q: What if I want to change something about a GOI format? Or what if a GOI format isn't working for me? For example, the Fifthists only have their oddly specific formats, and one of those branches -

A: Gonna stop you there before you spoil anymore, person. To start with the Fifthists question, let's look at their hub:

Anyone may add new formats in the form of new branches of Fifthism.

Now, you might find that a GoI format isn't working for you, or feels restrictive for what you want to write, even if you're sure you want to write with that group. Plus, making a GoI format doesn't have to just be limited to an anomalous object. They can pertain to other groups, events, memos, task forces, etc.

So if you want to write the format with a different approach, or even in a different format, contact one of the GoI team members if they are still around and talk with them about your idea and see what they have to say or offer. If they approve of your format variation, go for it. If they don't… there's nothing stopping you, sure, but at least take their comments into consideration.

Q: Can we make hubs for our MTFs during the contest, similar to how teams could make hubs for their GoIs during that contest?

A: Not during the contest, no. After the contest (as in, only after the winners are announced), feel free to go for it! However, the hubs can only be made and posted after two other people who weren't on your team use the MTF.

Q: Do supplements for SCPs count towards the page total?

A: Your Recovery Document/After Action Report counts as a supplement and can itself be in whatever form you want it to be, but other non-recovery document/after action report supplements do not count towards the page total. You're encouraged to write them if you want, but keep that in mind.

Q: Does the Recovery Document/After Action Report need to be a supplement? Can't it stand on its own? We can't think of anything to supplement it to.

A: Yes, it has to be a supplement. If you want to post it on its own, apropos of nothing else, you could tag it as tale instead, but be aware that these documents might possibly work best when attached to something else, and that judges may look more favorably upon inter-connectivity.

Q: Are team members allowed to vote on each other's works (up or down) during the contest?

A: I'm going to say no. After the contest, feel free.

Q: Would it strictly have to be a Foundation MTF? I was thinking about the possibility of using a GOC assessment/strike team. Is that a possibility?

A: It has to be a Foundation MTF. You can include a GOC strike team in your story, but the articles must involve the MTF. However, joint task forces (IE, an Unusual Incidents Unit/Foundation JTF or a GOC/Foundation JTF, etc.) are allowed. Please keep in mind, however, that this is not a GoI Contest v2. You can emphasize the importance of the Foundation working with them, and include the GoI in as many of your articles as you want, but this is a contest focusing on the Foundation. Don't exclude them as an excuse to write another group entirely.

Q: Does every document made for the contest have to feature the MTF heavily, or can they all build up into a plotline that features the MTF heavily?

A: Preferably, at the very least, all the documents should mention or allude to your MTF in some form. They can all be an interconnected story, some articles barely featuring the task force.. They can all be totally separate works, disconnected from each other except for all prominently featuring the MTF. So long as the MTF plays a role throughout in some fashion, connected or not, you'll be fine.

Q: What if we're not sure about an article featuring the MTF enough, or having enough of a connection?

A: PM me the article, and I'll look it over. I do not have the time or effort to look over every article, so don't send me your team's entire body of work. However, if you're unsure on something, I can give you the OK/no-go. As long as you're fine waiting anywhere from a few hours to two days (at the worst-case scenario; I have a life too, after all!).

Q: Do translations count as SCPs for the requirement?

A: No, they do not. The same goes for SCPs written by one of your team members that you edit the MTF in. You can add these to the team hubs, and it can be a good way to support your other work. In addition, you can make any amount of major and minor changes to these as you wish. But editing in your MTF to previous SCPs, as well as translating SCPs from the other branches, will not count for the SCP requirement. In addition, please do not add the "mtf2016" tag to these as well.

Deadlines (or When Do We Get Started?)

Feel free to go ahead and form your teams right now! Here are the following deadlines to keep in mind, however.

After posting your entries, tag them "MTF2016" and link them to your team's hub at the bottom of this page. The winners will have their work featured on the frontpage and possibly other prizes. Runner-ups (2nd & 3rd place) will be rewarded by having an article of theirs (their choice) featured on the front page.

This contest was run by Decibelles. The rules were primarily written by TroyL, and revised slightly by Decibelles. Timestamp code provided by Crayne and modified by anqxyr. Team hub format modified by djkaktus.

Footnotes

1. While this is a translation, for all intents and purposes, this will be treated similar to an edited inclusion to buff up a team's collection.